“What’s in the box?” is the famous phrase uttered by Brad Pitt’s David Mills in Se7en. In the climactic scene of David Fincher’s crime thriller, Detective Mills and Detective Lieutenant William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) escort serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) outside the city to a remote location. A driver delivers a package to Mills. Somerset opens the package to reveal the severed head of Mills’ wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow). Somerset begs a distraught Mills to put the gun down, but the young detective’s rage wins out as he kills Doe.
Se7en is heading to IMAX on January 3 for the film’s 30th anniversary before its 4K UHD Blu-ray release on January 7. In honor of the occasion, Fincher sat down with Entertainment Weekly and discussed what was really in the box. Because the head is never shown on screen, fans have wondered what Fincher put in the box. There’s a rumor that a prosthetic head and body modeled after Paltrow were in the box to elicit a genuine reaction from the actors.
After 30 years, Fincher is putting this rumor to rest.
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“No, it’s entirely ridiculous,” Fincher said when asked about the prosthetic head rumor. “I think we had a seven- or eight-pound shot bag. We had done the research to figure out if Gwyneth Paltrow’s body mass index was X, what portion of that would be attributable to her head. And so we had an idea of what that would weigh, and I think there was a weight in it.”
Despite the lack of a prosthetic head, Fincher did include one accessory taped to a shot bag.
“And we did put a wig in there, so that when Morgan rips the box open, if there were some of this tape that was used to seal the box,” Fincher said about the shocking ending. “I think it was a shot bag and a wig, and I think the wig had a little bit of blood in it, so some of the hair would stick together. Remember, I think Morgan opened 16 or 17 of those things. But as I always say, you don’t need to see what’s in the box if you have Morgan Freeman.”
Tickets for the rerelease of Se7en are now on sale.